Spurs’ streak falls in a blizzard of 3s

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — Spurs players were up and at ’em Friday morning, many of them preparing to wander down to the lobby of the team’s hotel in Detroit suburbia to catch the bus to shootaround, when word began to filter out.

Shootaround had been called on account of weather.

Guard Danny Green used the unexpected snow day to accomplish two of his favorite activities.

“Ate and slept,” Green said. “There was nothing else to do.”

Had the Spurs known what was going to happen later at The Palace, that an offensively challenged Detroit Pistons team would hand them a 119-109 whipping, they might have opted to remain in hibernation.

Behind 26 points and 16 rebounds from Greg Monroe, 24 points from Brandon Knight and a season-high 21 points and five 3-pointers off the bench from Charlie Villanueva, the scuffling Pistons halted the NBA’s top winning streak at 11 games.

With a first-half 3-point barrage (7 of 11), Detroit raced out to a 21-point lead in the second quarter that had the ? Spurs (39-12) playing catch-up all night.

“They jumped on us,” said point guard Tony Parker, who had 31 points and eight assists with only one turnover. “We had a hard time to find our rhythm. After that, we were chasing the whole game.”

Nobody said life without Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili, who played together just once during the Spurs’ winning streak, was supposed to be easy.

For Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, Friday came down to a difference in energy, with a 49-33 rebounding edge in favor of the Pistons serving as Exhibit A.

“They had a lot of juice,” Popovich said. “They beat us on the boards, beat us to loose balls. They were very unselfish at the offensive end, moved the balls to 3-point shooters.”

Before the game, Popovich all but predicted a lackluster performance looming at some point. It is too hard, he said, to play well every night during an 82-game schedule.

“We’ll probably lay an egg here sometime or other,” he said.

In handing the Spurs their first defeat since Jan. 11 in Memphis, Detroit (19-32) produced an offensive eruption nobody could have predicted. The Pistons, who came in averaging 94.7 points, surpassed that by the end of the third quarter, up 95-78.

After Detroit rang up 65 points in the first half, a high for a Spurs’ opponent this season, Popovich was at his caustic best in the halftime locker room.

“Do we want to talk about the game plan, or do we want to listen to Tone Loc?” Popovich asked, referring to the classic rap act serving as halftime entertainment in the arena bowl.

“We’re supposed to be pretty good at guarding the 3-point line,” said Popovich, whose team ranks first in the league in 3-point defense. “And they sliced and diced us in that regard.”

After a scorching first half from distance, Detroit cooled to 3 of 11 in the second. But the treys the Pistons did make down the stretch were timely.

After Danny Green nailed the fourth of his five 3-pointers to bring the Spurs within 101-93 with 7:16 left, Villanueva answered immediately with a long ball of his own.

Kawhi Leonard hit a 3-pointer with 4:47 to go. But Knight responded with a dagger from deep.

The Spurs were within eight again heading toward the final two minutes when Villanueva threw in another line drive to push the gap back to 11. By game’s end, Villanueva had nearly tripled his season average (7.2 points per game), throwing in his most 3-pointers since going 5 for 5 against Charlotte on Dec. 27, 2010.

“You have to give them credit,” Parker said. “Every time we came close, they came up with a big three. Sometimes, that’s going to happen in the NBA.”

With each Pistons 3-pointer that found the bottom of the net, it became easy for the Spurs to chalk it up to just one of those nights.

The rodeo trip is still young. There are still games to play, continuing with Sunday night’s trip to Brooklyn.

“You’re going to lose sometime,” Parker said. “Eleven games (in a row) is great. Now we have to start another one.”